| Cervantes is Dead |
6 October 2003
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People of La Mancha Resist Windmill Plan
In the "Truth-Is-Stranger-Than-Fiction Department," the good people of Luzaga in La Mancha, Spain, are trying to keep windmills out of their town. The desire to use the adjective quixotic is almost irresistible. Yet, this reluctance to host windmills is merely the latest in a seemingly endless line of spoiled-brat attitudes summed up by "not in my backyard," or NIMBY.
A Danish company, Neg Micon, wants to put up 33 turbines (windmills) to generate electricity. Spain, second only to Germany in wind power generation, already has over 4,800 megawatts of installed capacity, amounting to 8% of the nation's total. Neg Micon's plan would add 49.5 megawatts of capacity, and for Euro48 million, it will provide electricity for 100,000 people. Wind power is cheap, renewable, and in most ways, environmentally friendly. More, not less, is the message here.
Yet installation of these turbines will require cutting of some forest, and it appears that the turbines are noisy machines. So, the people of Luzaga's attitude is summed up by leader of the anti-windmill crowd (the Chief Quixote?), Celso Hernando, who told Reuters, "We are not against wind power, but if they build a wind park here it will destroy the ecosystem surrounding the town."
What the locals don't seem to understand is that any wind park will affect any ecosystem. That's what a human presence does. People are part of the environment. Electricity is something people need, and therefore, it must be generated. Failure to do so creates a thousand other environmental problems (e.g., the deforestation of North Africa and much of Europe for fuel took place before the year 1800).
Change is hard to accept, but the NIMBY attitude essentially says, "Let others suffer, but by all means, keep the benefits here." A nuclear power plant or a dirty-coal station would be worth fighting. In resisting Neg Micon's plan, though, one fears that the people of Luzaga are tilting at windmills.
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